2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Measuring the Impact of Budding Support Programs for Women Undergraduates in Computing Degrees

Presented at Women in Engineering Division (WIED) Technical Session 8

Gender disparity in computing degree enrollment, a well-documented global and national issue, persists at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Consistent with these trends, enrollment in computing majors at XYZ college has doubled over the past decade while the percentage of women in these majors has remained steady at 8-15%. The short-term goal of this study was to explore the implementation of institutional initiatives to improve the experience of women in undergraduate computing degree programs. The long-term goal is to increase retention and recruitment to balance the gender disparity in enrollment. For this project, XYZ college designed and implemented multiple co-curricular support programs (initiatives). Despite scarce local opportunities for funding due to the global COVID19 pandemic, local funding was secured for these initiatives. This paper presents the three initiatives started at XYZ to address gender imbalance, including 1) maintaining the women in computing student club, 2) hosting a summer orientation program, 3) attending women-centric conference and field trips. Findings suggest positive implications for women in the computing degree programs of XYZ in terms of their experience as they complete their degree program at XYZ, their connection and sense of belonging to the field, and academic self-concept.

Authors

Dr. Ilknur Aydin State University of New York, College of Technology at Farmingdale [biography]

Ilknur Aydin is an Associate Professor of Computer Systems at Farmingdale State College in New York. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Delaware in DE, USA and received her BS degree in Computer Engineering from Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey. She also worked as a software engineer in Turkey on projects about implementation of a GPS (Global Positioning System) based vehicle tracking system.

Dr. Aydin's research is in the general area of wireless and mobile networks with a focus on transport layer issues including multihoming, SCTP, multipath transfers, congestion control, and network coding. Dr. Aydin has mentored undergraduates and high school students on research projects that involve the use of Arduino boxes and Raspberry Pi's in the context of Internet of Things.

Dr. Aydin has been a vivid supporter of women in computing and increasing diversity in computing. She has been the co-faculty advisor for Women in Computing club at Farmingdale, and contributed Grace Hopper Celebration as a technical committee member and reviewer. and published and presented in peer reviewed venues about women in computing and broadening the participation over a decade.
Dr. Mary V. Villani State University of New York, College of Technology at Farmingdale [biography]

Mary V. Villani is an Associate Professor at Farmingdale State College (FSC). She holds a doctoral degree from Pace University, the Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science, and Information Systems. Her dissertation topic was Keystroke Biometric Identification Studies on Long-Text input. Publications in this area include peer-reviewed journal articles, external conference papers and a co-authored book chapter in Behavioral Biometrics for Human Identification: Intelligent Applications. Dr. Villani has been actively seeking funding and has been awarded funding both internally and externally to address the gender disparity in the Computing Programs at FSC and is Co-Faculty Advisor to the Supporting Women in Computing Club. Dr. Villani has presented and published in peer reviewed journals regarding initiatives and outcomes addressing the gender disparity in computing disciplines including co-moderated a Birds of a Feather Session at the virtual NY Celebration of Women in Computing at the Spring 2021 Conference entitled: Learning and Sharing from the Decade long Journey of Success and Failures on Women in Computing Initiatives. Professor Villani presented a paper entitled, Solving the Gender Disparity Puzzle in Computing Disciplines at a Commuter State College at ISECON virtual conference in October 2021 and co-moderated a Birds of a Feather session at SIGSCE 2022 virtually entitled: Mentoring a Women in Computing Club: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Dr. Villani presented a paper at ASEE 2022 in Minneapolis, MN entitled: Designed A (Re)Orientation Program for Women Computing Students at a Commuter College and Measuring its Effectiveness. Fall 2023 a paper entitled: An Early Measure of Women-Focused Initiatives in Gender-Imbalanced Computing programs were presented at CCSC Eastern Conference. Dr. Villani has been a Grace Hopper Scholarship reviewer, Dr. Villani was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013. Prior to joining FSC, Dr. Villani had a fifteen-year Computer Consulting Career in the Risk Management and Insurance industry. Throughout her career, she wrote articles and papers on the topic of Risk Management Information Systems and delivered several invited presentations at Risk Management Conferences as she was a recognized expert in the discipline.
Dr. Lisa Cullington National University [biography]

Lisa Cullington, Ph.D. is an educational researcher with expertise in curriculum development, learning outcomes and educational assessment best practices. She focuses on building and evaluating academic programs that promote inclusive excellence for all learners. Currently, Dr. Cullington serves as the Director of Learning Outcomes for National University. Previously, she was the Founding Co-Director of the Honors Program at SUNY Farmingdale and Associate Director of the Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) Program where she designed, implemented, and evaluated academic programs to engage students from historically minoritized communities in undergraduate research opportunities. She has served as a principal investigator and educational researcher on number grant initiatives, including grants from the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Education.

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Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
computer science
gender
undergraduate